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29 September 2015 - 06:01 AMT

German police quells migrant mass brawl at Calden camp

A mass brawl has erupted at a tented camp for migrants in Germany, with Albanians and Pakistanis fighting each other with sticks and irritant sprays, BBC News reports.

It took police several hours to quell the violence between some 400 migrants at Calden, near Kassel in central Germany, German media report.

Fourteen people were injured, three of them police officers. It began with an argument in the camp's canteen. Meanwhile the anti-immigration Freedom Party has surged in polls in Austria.

The violence at Calden, in the German state of Hesse, left some migrants shivering in the cold outside the camp until they could be moved back in late on Sunday, September 27. But one migrant group was moved out to separate accommodation.

It is not yet clear what type of irritant gas was used in the fighting.

The camp is estimated to have 1,500 migrants from 20 countries, including Syria.

Tensions have arisen there and elsewhere over the way asylum claims are handled, as Syrians and Iraqis are usually prioritised for refugee status.

Last month a mass brawl also erupted at a migrant hostel at Suhl in eastern Germany, after an Afghan tore pages out of a Koran.

Several German politicians have argued that different ethnic groups should be housed in separate migrant accommodation.

Migrant hostels have also been targeted by anti-immigration nationalists. Fires have swept through several hostels – often buildings not yet occupied by migrants – in suspected arson attacks.